Radiohead frontman Thom Yorke has announced a new solo album named Tomorrow's Modern Boxes, which he will distribute via torrent service BitTorrent.

The album, which Yorke has made with producer Nigel Godrich, will be released in the coming weeks via the service.

He explains: "As an experiment we are using a new version of BitTorrent to distribute a new Thom Yorke record. The new Torrent files have a pay gate to access a bundle of files. The files can be anything, but in this case is an 'album'. It’s an experiment to see if the mechanics of the system are something that the general public can get its head around."

He continued: "If it works well it could be an effective way of handing some control of internet commerce back to people who are creating the work. Enabling those people who make either music, video or any other kind of digital content to sell it themselves. Bypassing the self elected gate-keepers. If it works anyone can do this exactly as we have done. The torrent mechanism does not require any server uploading or hosting costs or ‘cloud’ malarkey. It's a self-contained embeddable shop front..."

He continued further: "The network not only carries the traffic, it also hosts the file. The file is in the network. Oh yes and it's called Tomorrow's Modern Boxes."

The album is Yorke's first solo effort since 2006's The Eraser and comes amid news that Radiohead are also back in the studio recording the follow-up to The King Of Limbs, which you can preview on the right of the page.